After a week in Antigua, we took a short shuttle bus to Lago Atitlán - lake Atitlán, where we planned to spend Christmas and new year. Lago Atitlán is a volcanic lake 18km long, 6km wide and 325m deep. The lake sits at an altitude of 1500m, and the locals say the climate is ‘eternal spring,’ because it’s always a sunny 25 degrees every day. There are 11 towns around the lake, and each is different with it’s own culture and personality. Lots of the towns are only accessible by boat, and don’t have any road acesss to them. We decided to stay in a few different towns during our time at the lake. Panajachel : We arrived from Antigua to our first lake-side destination for a few nights: Panajachel. We had a good view of lake here, and enjoyed sitting by the lake and watching the locals swim (the water here was a bit too dirty for us to venture in!). We spent our time here wondering the colourful streets, looking at the handicrafts and locally made goods, and eating at some lovely ...
Guadalupe: We left San Gil after an amazing week of camping, adventure, and riding our bikes in the mountains, and headed a few hours south to the small mountain town of Guadalupe. We stayed in a lovely hostel run by Jose, who is an adventure biker, and who runs a bar in the town too. We loved the small town feel of Guadalupe, it’s a place not many tourists visit, and we enjoyed chatting to the locals about our trip and wandering around the town. We spend an afternoon on Jose’s bar, meeting his friends and chatting to the locals. We did a ride out to visit a waterfall one day, though we didn’t go for a swim as the water didn’t look too clean! We also hiked to Las Gachas - natural swimming pools formed in a river bed from erosion of the rocks over time. We had good fun dipping in the pools and enjoying the cool water, we were lucky to be the only ones there! Ash also saved some frogs who got stuck in a deep pool. The walk there and back was nice too - lots of views of the mou...
The Guajira desert is a remote, vast, and wild region located in Northern Colombia snd stretching across the border into Venezuela. It is the largest desert in South America north of the equator, and it’s surrounded by the sea on the northern side. It is home to the indigenous Wayuu people, who own and live on the land. The most Northerly point of South America lies deep in the Guajira desert - Punta Gallinas. There are no roads, and lots of the desert is difficult to access. There is no electricity or running water, and accommodations are basic. Biking in the desert is tricky as you need to hike across sand, and across land owned by Wayuu people who often put up road blocks to take payment for access. As the region is so remote and the local people very poor, they prefer payment with food or water to cross the road blocks. Historically it has been dangerous for tourists to enter the desert, and whilst it is now safer, robberies are still common. Given this, and the di...
Have a fab time x
ReplyDelete